The Spread Offense

Luke 4:42-44

So most of us know what the spread offense is. In case you don't here is a sum up of it. In football it means that you have your guys spread out as much as they can on the line of scrimmage in order to make the defense do the same and make it easier to run certain plays and get more yards and/or touchdowns.
It is primarily a passing style of offense. In basketball, it is used mainly at the end of the half and the end of the game when a team has a lead. In this case the players will spread out as far as they can on the court and hold the ball, throwing long passes across the court and basically playing keep away from the defense.

In basketball I have always hated the spread. In high school especially it does little to make the game fun to watch. Perhaps it's due to the fact that I have a more aggressive mindset and think that you should be trying to score (not run it up, but still score) rather than just standing around. It's boring and it gets to be rather stagnant. In fact I have a friend who told me a story about a basketball game his senior year where his team started running this at the end of the first half. 

As James brought the ball over mid-court the defense set up to play a zone instead of playing man-to-man. So the coach decided he would force them out of the zone by holding the ball in the spread. James stopped just past half court and stood holding the ball. The defense stayed in their zone; James held the ball some more; they still stayed in the zone; James held the ball. This went on for almost the entirety of the final five minutes of the first half. Imagine standing there, holding the ball for five minutes. The fans were bored, the other players had to be getting disinterested, and James had to ask the ref closest to him which foot was his legal pivot foot. Finally right at the end of the half the defense came out of the zone and ended up stealing the ball and scoring to end the half. That five minutes of holding the ball ended up being for nothing really. Everyone-players, fans coaches and officials-would have been better served had they just played the game for that time.

I tell you all of that to point out something from our scripture today. In the scripture the people beg Jesus to stay with them in their town and to not leave them. But Jesus points out to them that he has been sent to preach the Good News and the Kingdom of God in other places as well. So he must spread out his message and take it to others. The same is true for us. It is easy for us to get caught up in staying in one place, one group of people one area, one comfort zone with the message of God's Love and Grace through Jesus. When we do that it is like when James held the ball-we lose track of what we should be doing.

Jesus knew that his message needed to go to all people, not just to a few, and he wants us to do as he did and spread his message as best we can.  Peace and Love y'all.